Nvidia promises quadcore tablets by end of 2011

With smartphones to follow in 2012

Nvidia's quadcore processors will be hitting Android tablets by the end of 2011, according to the company's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang.

The processors, code-named Kal-El, will also make their way to smartphones too, but probably not until 2012.

"We're the only people seriously on the dance floor with Qualcomm," said Huang, conjuring up wonderful images of the two companies engaged in a teen-movie-style dance-off, probably trying to out-robot each other.

Superphone

He also talked about taking Nvidia into the mid-range smartphone market rather than focusing solely on tablets and 'superphones' like the Motorola Atrix.

"We'll be very pleased if we can be a sizable player in the mainstream phone market," Huang added.

He reckoned that Nvidia holds about a 70 per cent share of the Android tablet market, but only 50 per cent of the superphone line. No doubt being first past the post with quadcore chipsets will give the company a boost as we head into 2012.